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Digitization: Turning a Gamble into a Safe Bet

Our world is connected. Digitization is everywhere, and the Internet of Things (IoT) is growing ceaselessly. This not only affects both our private and business lives, but changes them for good. The question is: how can digitization change businesses for the better?

By now, most CEOs and business executives have come to realize the inevitable need to enter the world of IoT and adapt their products and services accordingly. However, while many executives realize the potential positive effects digitization can have on revenue, it still bears the stigma of a ‘necessary evil’: something that has to be implemented due to current trends rather than its return on investment. And even those business executives that understand the importance of digitization tend to underestimate the know-how required to create a stable, long-term solution.

Hard-pressed to keep up with their competitors, CEOs and CTOs prefer in-house development of IoT platforms in order to save money – to the great disadvantage of everybody but the rival companies they are trying to outperform. Those tasked with creating and maintaining a proper solution are rarely software developers and architects with the necessary expert knowledge, but have different responsibilities in day-to-day operations. This lack of expertise is usually accompanied by a lack of time, leading developers to copy other solutions on the market that may prove inadequate for the business’ product, and/or use outdated technologies and coding methods.

While this strategy may appear cost-efficient at first, it actually harbors huge – and expensive – risks. Malfunctioning and low interoperability can seriously decrease a product’s value or even render it useless to customers. Malware, bots, and hackers pose an even greater thread since attacks in this field tend to completely shatter customers’ trust in a company. In short, botched solutions can damage or even destroy a company’s reputation, put off customers, and, in the end, occasion higher costs than an external solution would have. An overview of the multitude and variety of IoT fails and their consequences is available on the ‘IoT Hall-of-Shame’.

Business executives’ reluctance to invest in external expert solutions is mainly rooted in their failure to fully grasp the potential of a high-quality IoT platform. Digitization is more than just an IT project, an ‘add on’ to a product. Digitization is a means to revolutionize entire companies and industries, and if done right, for the better. Regular updates keep products and services from becoming obsolete and protect them from hacker attacks, integrative IoT ensures communication across devices regardless of their operators, and data acquisition provides information for companies to perfectly tailor their products and services to their customers’ needs.

The core of our embedded middleware guhIO has been developed by our international team of top-notch software architects, who have, by now, dedicated more than five years to creating a high-quality IoT operating system. guhIO, with its one-of-a-kind architecture and scalable modules, has upgraded products in industries such as energy, automotive, and insurance. Products that are enhanced with guhIO benefit from the highest levels of interoperability, versatility and security, and generate a return worth the investment. guhIO enables our partners to not only keep up with their competitors, but surpass them, changing their products for the better.